In the first six months of this year, Quang Ninh attracted 2.5 million visitors, equivalent to 60 percent of the number recorded in the same period last year. (Photo: VNA) After containing the fourth wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, the locality hasallowed travel facilities to restore their operation in line with pandemicprevention and control regulations.
Promotion tourism programmes have been launched at Ha Long Bay, the provincialmuseum and the Yen Tu relic and scenic complex, targeting local holiday-makers.
Local travel firms have joined hands to build chains of products and servicesto cut expenditures amidst difficulties caused by the pandemic, while steppingup the communication work.
The provincial tourism association has also proposed the provincial People’sCommittee welcoming visitors with COVID-19 passes from other localities.
The tourism promotion agency under the provincial Department of Tourism hascoordinated with the Heritage Travel Centre to draw up 25 tours in Quang Ninh,including border, maritime, ecological, community-based and spiritual tourism,all offering coronavirus testing services.
Chairwoman of the tourism association Nguyen Thi Bao said her association hasproposed vaccinating tourism workers as soon as possible, saying with the fullsuite of services, Quang Ninh would serve not only domestic tourists but alsoforeigners in the new situation.
According to the local tourism department, in the first six months of thisyear, Quang Ninh attracted 2.5 million visitors, equivalent to 60 percent of thenumber recorded in the same period last year, earning 5.2 trillion VND (225.86million USD) from the sector.
The province is striving to administer COVID-19 vaccines to 70-80 percent oflocal residents by April 2022 in order to reach herd immunity against.
According to head of the provincial Health Department Nguyen Trong Dien, tothis end, the locality is speeding up COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
Recently, the province has administered tens of thousands of Sinopharm COVID-19vaccine doses to workers in Chinese-invested firms in Quang Ninh and borderresidents, he said.
According to the provincial industrial parks management board, over 70 percentof workers in local IPs have been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far.
Within more than a week as of July 18, over 21,700 workers in IPs received thefirst shots.
Quang Ninh is now home to five IPs with around 30,500 workers.
In the fifth vaccination roll-out, the province gave priority to workers in HaiHa Seaport IP in Hai Ha district, Hai Yen IP in Mong Cai city, Dong Mai IP inQuang Yen town and Viet Hung IP in Ha Long city.
So far, Quang Ninh has received about 260,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses ofdifferent kinds, with 60,000 doses administered. The province expects to injectthe rest in July and August while waiting for more vaccine delivery.
The province hopes to become one of the first localities in Vietnam to reachherd immunity. It is planning to build a vaccination database and start the useof vaccine passport. The locality has also allocated personnel to deliverCOVID-19 vaccines to locals in ethnic minority-inhabited, mountainous, islandsand hard-to-reach areas.
By 2030, the province is set to welcome 3 million domestic visitors and 1.8million foreigners, with revenue reaching 12.1 trillion VND.
Community-based tourism is expected to generate 4,200 jobs by 2025 and 9,500 by2030.
Quang Ninh is endowed with natural advantages for sea and island tourism. Ithas a coastline of more than 250 kilometres and more than 2,000 islands andislets which account for two-thirds of the total number in Vietnam.
It is home to popular destinations such as Ha Long Bay, Bai Tu Long, Ha LongBay National Park and some islands.
In particular, Ha Long Bay literally “descending dragon” bay, was twicerecognised as a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO in 1994 and 2000. The bayspans 1,553 square kilometres and includes 1,969 islands of various sizes. Itfeatures thousands of limestone karsts and islets in various shapes and sizes.The limestone in the bay has gone through 500 million years of formation indifferent conditions and environments. The geo-diversity of the environment hascreated biodiversity, including a tropical evergreen biosystem, oceanic and seabiosystem./.
VNA
